The development of performance and availability standards for satellite ATM networks

ATM services can be transported successfully over satellites provided adequate consideration is given to the specific characteristics of satellite communication systems and their interoperability with the terrestrial network. To establish end-to-end performance and availability standards, the ITU has developed recommendations for ATM intended to provide the quality of service and availability required by the end user. This article discusses the work of ITU-R Working Party 4B in developing recommendations that deal with the performance of ATM over satellites and with the availability objectives for ATM transport over satellites. Several issues are also identified for future work, in particular those pertaining to the characteristics of the new proposed satellites (LEOs, MEOs, GEOs) that will operate at frequencies higher than 15 GHz and those that plan to deploy ATM onboard processing or switching and intersatellite links